CDC: HIV Still Undertreated in U.S. Black Population

FRIDAY, Feb. 3, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- Although progress has been made, blacks in America are still disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS, according to research published in the Feb. 3 issue of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Andre Dailey, M.S.P.H., an epidemiologist in the CDC's division of HIV/AIDS prevention, and colleagues evaluated data from the National HIV Surveillance System in 33 areas around the nation.

The researchers found that of 12,269 black men and women diagnosed with HIV in 2014, 21.9 percent had progressed to AIDS by the time they were diagnosed. Moreover, among all black Americans with HIV in 2013, only 53.5 percent were receiving continuous medical care. Of those getting care, less than half had effectively suppressed the virus. This is far below the National HIV/AIDS Strategy goals of 90 percent of HIV patients in treatment and 80 percent with undetectable HIV by 2020, the study authors noted.

A second report in the same issue of the MMWR looked specifically at HIV diagnosis rates among black women in the United States. From 2005 to 2014, HIV infection rates among black women dropped 42 percent, according to the researchers. But in 2015, black women still accounted for almost two-thirds of women living with HIV in the United States.